Richmond Hill Videoconferences with Kennedy Space Center (NASA's Digital Learning Network
and
Anchorsholme School in England

Have you ever had a videoconference with NASA? Well, One Stop Richmond Hill Community Center did.  We talked to a NASA educator named Damon Talley.  Damon's job at NASA is to teach kids about space through videoconferencing and NASA's Digital Learning program.  Damon told us what he loves about his job and the answer to that is teaching kids   He said it is entertaining and fun to teach kid about what is going on at the space shuttle.   We also were joined by our friends in Blackpool, England. They are students at the Anchorsholme School.

Blackpool, UK students on the left, Damon of Kennedy Space Center in the middle, and Richmond Hill Community Center students (us!!) on the right. We had an activity of how many students could fit into a square yard. We were trying to calculate how many people could fit into the Kennedy Spaceport main building. The number was in the hundred thousands. In other words -- a lot!

One thing that was very interesting that happened on the same day as our videoconference was that the astronauts returned from space on Space Shuttle Discovery.   There landed at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.  When the astronauts were about 50 mile in the air you heard a loud BOOM!  The boom is called a sonic boom and Damon Talley took a video (with sound) so we could hear it.  We also saw the runway with the shuttle after it had just landed.  The sonic boom is like having a gun shot right besides you. Damon told us that you could even feel the vibration from the BOOM.  The space shuttle uses a parachute to slow down the spacecraft.  Air flows into the parachute and pulls it back.  The parachute helps the space shuttle to stop so there are no accidents and nobody gets hurt.

We had fun with Damon. The videoconference was entertaining and we learned a lot about NASA, Kennedy Space Center, the shuttle, and the International Space Station. Damon explained to us how the shuttle used the parachute to slow it down when it landed on the runway. The parachute then separates from the shuttle so it doesn't get in the way.

Damon recorded the sonic boom for us when Discovery landed and played it back for us. It was VERY loud (and we found out just how loud). It was funny to know that when people hear the BOOM they call the police. When Discovery landed people had been warned it would be loud and they asked the public not to worry or call the police. It didn't matter. People still got scared and over 300 calls were made to the police about the sonic boom.

Anchorsholme, Blackpool (UK) on the left; Damon demonstrating sonic boom in the middle, and NYC on the right

The space shuttle and its mission is interesting, and we even learned about why NASA doesn't want the shuttle to land in the rain. The rain might damage the heat protective tiles that are on the shuttle. They can stand very high heat but the water might damage them! We're glad the crew made a perfect landing and didn't have to land postpone its return to Earth.

Testing our connection with the Karl Proctor while showing him that the shuttle is landing on our computer on the Internet.	We worked with our British fellow students to figure out how many students could fit in the Kennedy Spaceport. Math is everywhere.

It was a very special day and we were honored that Kennedy Space Center's (NASA's) Digital Learning Network found time to videoconference with us on such a busy day. Welcome back crew of the Discovery!